The Sophists (Ancient Greek)
by George Duke
The sophists were itinerant professional teachers and
intellectuals who frequented Athens and other Greek cities in the second half
of the fifth century B.C. In return for a fee, the sophists offered young
wealthy Greek men an education in aretē
(virtue or excellence), thereby attaining wealth and fame while also arousing
significant antipathy. Prior to the fifth century B.C., aretē
was predominately associated with aristocratic warrior virtues such as
courage and physical strength. In democratic Athens of the latter fifth century
B.C., however, aretē was
increasingly understood in terms of the ability to influence one’s fellow
citizens in political gatherings through rhetorical persuasion; the sophistic
education both grew out of and exploited this shift. The most famous
representatives of the sophistic movement are Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon,
Hippias, Prodicus and Thrasymachus.
The historical and
philological difficulties confronting an interpretation of the sophists are
significant. Only a handful of sophistic texts have survived and most of what
we know of the sophists is drawn from second-hand testimony, fragments and the
generally hostile depiction of them in Plato’s dialogues.
The philosophical problem of
the nature of sophistry is arguably even more formidable. Due in large part to
the influence of Plato and Aristotle, the term sophistry
has come to signify the deliberate use of fallacious reasoning, intellectual
charlatanism and moral unscrupulousness. It is, as the article explains, an
oversimplification to think of the historical sophists in these terms because
they made genuine and original contributions to Western thought. Plato and Aristotle
nonetheless established their view of what constitutes legitimate philosophy in
part by distinguishing their own activity – and that of Socrates – from the
sophists. If one is so inclined, sophistry can thus be regarded, in a
conceptual as well as historical sense, as the ‘other’ of philosophy.
Perhaps because of the
interpretative difficulties mentioned above, the sophists have been many things
to many people. For Hegel (1995/1840) the sophists were subjectivists whose sceptical reaction to the objective dogmatism of the presocratics was synthesised in
the work of Plato and Aristotle. For the utilitarian English classicist George
Grote (1904), the sophists were progressive thinkers who placed in question the
prevailing morality of their time. More recent work by French theorists such as
Jacques Derrida (1981) and Jean Francois-Lyotard
(1985) suggests affinities between the sophists and postmodernism.
This article provides a
broad overview of the sophists, and indicates some of the central philosophical
issues raised by their work. Section 1 discusses the meaning of the term sophist.
Section 2 surveys the individual contributions of the most famous sophists.
Section 3 examines three themes that have often been taken as characteristic of
sophistic thought: the distinction between nature and convention, relativism
about knowledge and truth and the power of speech. Finally, section 4 analyses
attempts by Plato and others to establish a clear demarcation between
philosophy and sophistry.
Table
of Contents
The term sophist (sophistēs) derives from the Greek words for
wisdom (sophia) and
wise (sophos). Since Homer at least, these
terms had a wide range of application, extending from practical know-how and
prudence in public affairs to poetic ability and theoretical knowledge. Notably,
the term sophia could
be used to describe disingenuous cleverness long before the rise of the
sophistic movement. Theognis, for example, writing in
the sixth century B.C., counsels Cyrnos to
accommodate his discourse to different companions, because such cleverness (sophiē) is superior to
even a great excellence (Elegiac Poems, 1072, 213).
In the fifth century B.C.
the term sophistēs was still
broadly applied to ‘wise men’, including poets such as Homer and Hesiod, the
Seven Sages, the Ionian ‘physicists’ and a variety of seers and prophets. The
narrower use of the term to refer to professional teachers of virtue or
excellence (aretē) became prevalent in
the second half of the fifth century B.C., although this should not be taken to
imply the presence of a clear distinction between philosophers, such as
Socrates, and sophists, such as Protagoras, Gorgias and Prodicus.
This much is evident from Aristophanes’ play The Clouds (423 B.C.), in
which Socrates is depicted as a sophist and Prodicus
praised for his wisdom.
Aristophanes’ play is a good
starting point for understanding Athenian attitudes towards sophists. The Clouds
depicts the tribulations of Strepsiades, an elderly
Athenian citizen with significant debts. Deciding that the best way to
discharge his debts is to defeat his creditors in court, he attends The Thinkery, an institute of higher education headed up by the
sophist Socrates. When he fails to learn the art of speaking in The Thinkery, Strepsiades persuades
his initially reluctant son, Pheidippides, to accompany
him. Here they encounter two associates of Socrates, the Stronger and the
Weaker Arguments, who represent lives of justice and self-discipline and
injustice and self-indulgence respectively. On the basis of a popular vote, the
Weaker Argument prevails and leads Pheidippides into
The Thinkery for an education in how to make the
weaker argument defeat the stronger. Strepsiades
later revisits The Thinkery and finds that Socrates
has turned his son into a pale and useless intellectual. When Pheidippides graduates, he subsequently prevails not only
over Strepsiades’ creditors, but also beats his
father and offers a persuasive rhetorical justification for the act. As Pheidippides prepares to beat his mother, Strepsiades’ indignation motivates him to lead a violent
mob attack on The Thinkery.
Aristophanes’ depiction of
Socrates the sophist is revealing on at least three levels. In the first
instance, it demonstrates that the distinction between Socrates and his
sophistic counterparts was far from clear to their contemporaries. Although
Socrates did not charge fees and frequently asserted that all he knew was that
he was ignorant of most matters, his association with the sophists reflects
both the indeterminacy of the term sophist and the difficulty, at least for the
everyday Athenian citizen, of distinguishing his methods from theirs. Secondly,
Aristophanes’ depiction suggests that the sophistic education reflected a
decline from the heroic Athens of earlier generations. Thirdly, the attribution
to the sophists of intellectual deviousness and moral dubiousness predates
Plato and Aristotle.
Hostility towards sophists
was a significant factor in the decision of the Athenian dēmos
to condemn Socrates to the death penalty for impiety. Anytus,
who was one of Socrates’ accusers at his trial, was clearly unconcerned with
details such as that the man he accused did not claim to teach aretē or extract fees for so doing. He is
depicted by Plato as suggesting that sophists are the ruin of all those who
come into contact with them and as advocating their expulsion from the city (Meno, 91c-92c). Equally as revealing, in terms of
attitudes towards the sophists, is Socrates’ discussion with Hippocrates, a
wealthy young Athenian keen to become a pupil of Protagoras (Protagoras,
312a). Hippocrates is so eager to meet Protagoras that he wakes Socrates in the
early hours of the morning, yet later concedes that he himself would be ashamed
to be known as a sophist by his fellow citizens.
Plato depicts Protagoras as
well aware of the hostility and resentment engendered by his profession (Protagoras,
316c-e). It is not surprising, Protagoras suggests, that foreigners who profess
to be wise and persuade the wealthy youth of powerful cities to forsake their
family and friends and consort with them would arouse suspicion. Indeed,
Protagoras claims that the sophistic art is an ancient one, but that sophists
of old, including poets such as Homer, Hesiod and Simonides,
prophets, seers and even physical trainers, deliberately did not adopt the name
for fear of persecution. Protagoras says that while he has adopted a strategy
of openly professing to be a sophist, he has taken other precautions – perhaps
including his association with the Athenian general Pericles – in order to
secure his safety.
The low standing of the
sophists in Athenian public opinion does not stem from a single source. No
doubt suspicion of intellectuals among the many was a factor. New money and
democratic decision-making, however, also constituted a threat to the
conservative Athenian aristocratic establishment. This threatening social
change is reflected in the attitudes towards the concept of excellence or
virtue (aretē) alluded to in the summary
above. Whereas in the Homeric epics aretē
generally denotes the strength and courage of a real man, in the second half of
the fifth century B.C. it increasingly became associated with success in public
affairs through rhetorical persuasion.
In the context of Athenian
political life of the late fifth century B.C. the importance of skill in
persuasive speech, or rhetoric, cannot be underestimated. The development of
democracy made mastery of the spoken word not only a precondition of political success
but also indispensable as a form of self-defence in
the event that one was subject to a lawsuit. The sophists accordingly answered
a growing need among the young and ambitious. Meno,
an ambitious pupil of Gorgias, says that the aretē
– and hence function – of a man is to rule over people, that is, manage his
public affairs so as to benefit his friends and harm his enemies (73c-d). This
is a long-standing ideal, but one best realised in
democratic Athens through rhetoric. Rhetoric was thus the core of the sophistic
education (Protagoras, 318e), even if most sophists professed to teach a
broader range of subjects.
Suspicion towards the
sophists was also informed by their departure from the aristocratic model of
education (paideia). Since Homeric Greece, paideia had been the preoccupation of the ruling
nobles and was based around a set of moral precepts befitting an aristocratic
warrior class. The business model of the sophists presupposed that aretē could be taught to all free citizens, a
claim that Protagoras implicitly defends in his great speech regarding the
origins of justice. The sophists were thus a threat to the status quo because
they made an indiscriminate promise – assuming capacity to pay fees – to
provide the young and ambitious with the power to prevail in public life.
One could therefore loosely
define sophists as paid teachers of aretē,
where the latter is understood in terms of the capacity to attain and exercise
political power through persuasive speech. This is only a starting point,
however, and the broad and significant intellectual achievement of the
sophists, which we will consider in the following two sections, has led some to
ask whether it is possible or desirable to attribute them with a unique method
or outlook that would serve as a unifying characteristic while also
differentiating them from philosophers.
Protagoras of Abdera
(c. 490-420 B.C.E.) was the most prominent member of the sophistic movement and
Plato reports he was the first to charge fees using that title (Protagoras,
349a). Despite his animus towards the sophists, Plato depicts Protagoras as
quite a sympathetic and dignified figure.
One of the more intriguing
aspects of Protagoras’ life and work is his association with the great Athenian
general and statesman Pericles (c. 495-429 B.C.E.). Pericles, who was the most
influential statesman in Athens for more than 30 years, including the first two
years of the Peloponnesian War, seems to have held a high regard for
philosophers and sophists, and Protagoras in particular, entrusting him with
the role of drafting laws for the Athenian foundation city of Thurii in 444 B.C.E.
From a philosophical
perspective, Protagoras is most famous for his relativistic account of truth –
in particular the claim that ‘man is the measure of all things’ – and his
agnosticism concerning the Gods. The first topic will be discussed in section
3b. Protagoras’ agnosticism is famously articulated in the claim that
‘concerning the gods I am not in a position to know either that (or how) they
are or that (or how) they are not, or what they are like in appearance; for
there are many things that prevent knowledge, the obscurity of the matter and
the brevity of human life’ (DK, 80B4). This seems to express a form of
religious agnosticism not completely foreign to educated Athenian opinion.
Despite this, according to tradition, Protagoras was convicted of impiety
towards the end of his life. As a consequence, so the story goes, his books
were burnt and he drowned at sea while departing Athens. It is perhaps
significant in this context that Protagoras seems to have been the source of
the sophistic claim to ‘make the weaker argument defeat the stronger’ parodied
by Aristophanes.
Plato suggests that
Protagoras sought to differ his educational offering from that of other
sophists, such as Hippias, by concentrating upon instruction in aretē in the sense of political virtue
rather than specialised studies such as astronomy and
mathematics (Protagoras, 318e).
Apart from his works Truth
and On the Gods, which deal with his relativistic account of truth
and agnosticism respectively, Diogenes Laertius says
that Protagoras wrote the following books: Antilogies, Art of Eristics, Imperative, On Ambition, On
Incorrect Human Actions, On those in Hades, On Sciences, On
Virtues, On Wrestling, On the Original State of Things and Trial
over a Fee.
Gorgias of Leontini
(c.485 – c.390 B.C.E.) is generally considered as a member of the sophistic
movement, despite his disavowal of the capacity to teach aretē
(Meno, 96c). The major focus of Gorgias
was rhetoric and given the importance of persuasive speaking to the sophistic
education, and his acceptance of fees, it is appropriate to consider him
alongside other famous sophists for present purposes.
Gorgias visited Athens in
427 B.C.E. as the leader of an embassy from Leontini
with the successful intention of persuading the Athenians to make an alliance
against Syracuse. He travelled extensively around Greece, earning large sums of
money by giving lessons in rhetoric and epideictic speeches.
Plato’s Gorgias
depicts the rhetorician as something of a celebrity, who either does not have
well thought out views on the implications of his expertise, or is reluctant to
share them, and who denies his responsibility for the unjust use of rhetorical
skill by errant students. Although Gorgias presents himself as moderately
upstanding, the dramatic structure of Plato’s dialogue suggests that the defence of injustice by Polus and
the appeal to the natural right of the stronger by Callicles
are partly grounded in the conceptual presuppositions of Gorgianic
rhetoric.
Gorgias’ original
contribution to philosophy is sometimes disputed, but the fragments of his
works On Not Being or Nature and Helen – discussed in detail in
section 3c – feature intriguing claims concerning the power of rhetorical
speech and a style of argumentation reminiscent of Parmenides and Zeno. Gorgias
is also credited with other orations and encomia and a technical treatise on
rhetoric titled At the Right Moment in Time.
The biographical details
surrounding Antiphon the sophist
(c. 470-411 B.C.) are unclear – one unresolved issue is whether he should be
identified with Antiphon of Rhamnus (a statesman and
teacher of rhetoric who was a member of the oligarchy which held power in
Athens briefly in 411 B.C.E.). However, since the publication of fragments from
his On Truth in the early twentieth century he has been regarded as a
major representative of the sophistic movement.
On Truth, which features a range of positions and counterpositions on the relationship between nature and
convention (see section 3a below), is sometimes considered an important text in
the history of political thought because of its alleged advocacy of
egalitarianism:
Those born of illustrious
fathers we respect and honour, whereas those who come
from an undistinguished house we neither respect nor honour.
In this we behave like barbarians towards one another. For by nature we all
equally, both barbarians and Greeks, have an entirely similar origin: for it is
fitting to fulfil the natural satisfactions which are
necessary to all men: all have the ability to fulfil
these in the same way, and in all this none of us is different either as
barbarian or as Greek; for we all breathe into the air with mouth and nostrils
and we all eat with the hands (quoted in Untersteiner,
1954).
Whether this statement
should be taken as expressing the actual views of Antiphon, or rather as part
of an antilogical presentation of opposing views on
justice remains an open question, as does whether such a position rules out the
identification of Antiphon the sophist with the oligarchical
Antiphon of Rhamnus.
The exact dates for Hippias
of Elis are unknown, but scholars generally assume that he lived during the
same period as Protagoras. Whereas Plato’s depictions of Protagoras – and to a
lesser extent Gorgias – indicate a modicum of respect, he presents Hippias as a
comic figure who is obsessed with money, pompous and confused.
Hippias is best known for
his polymathy (DK 86A14). His areas of expertise seem
to have included astronomy, grammar, history, mathematics, music, poetry,
prose, rhetoric, painting and sculpture. Like Gorgias and Prodicus,
he served as an ambassador for his home city. His work as a historian, which
included compiling lists of Olympic victors, was invaluable to Thucydides and
subsequent historians as it allowed for a more precise dating of past events.
In mathematics he is attributed with the discovery of a curve – the quadratrix – used to trisect an angle.
In terms of his
philosophical contribution, Kerferd has suggested, on
the basis of Plato’s Hippias Major (301d-302b), that Hippias advocated a
theory that classes or kinds of thing are dependent on a being that traverses
them. It is hard to make much sense of this alleged doctrine on the basis of
available evidence. As suggested above, Plato depicts Hippias as
philosophically shallow and unable to keep up with Socrates in dialectical
discussion.
Prodicus of Ceos, who lived during roughly the same period as
Protagoras and Hippias, is best known for his subtle distinctions between the
meanings of words. He is thought to have written a treatise titled On the
Correctness of Names.
Plato gives an amusing
account of Prodicus’ method in the following passage
of the Protagoras:
Prodicus spoke up next: … ‘those who
attend discussions such as this ought to listen impartially, but not equally,
to both interlocutors. There is a distinction here. We ought to listen
impartially but not divide our attention equally: More should go to the wiser
speaker and less to the more unlearned … In this way our meeting would take a
most attractive turn, for you, the speakers, would then most surely earn the
respect, rather than the praise, of those listening to you. For
respect is guilelessly inherent in the souls of listeners, but praise is all
too often merely a deceitful verbal expression. And then, too, we, your
audience, would be most cheered, but not pleased, for to be cheered is to learn
something, to participate in some intellectual activity; but to be pleased has
to do with eating or experiencing some other pleasure in the body’ (337a-c).
Prodicus’ epideictic speech, The Choice of Heracles,
was singled out for praise by Xenophon (Memorabilia, II.1.21-34) and in
addition to his private teaching he seems to have served as an ambassador for Ceos (the birthplace of Simonides)
on several occasions.
Socrates, although perhaps
with some degree of irony, was fond of calling himself a pupil of Prodicus (Protagoras, 341a; Meno,
96d).
Thrasymachus
was a well-known rhetorician in Athens in the latter part of the fifth century
B.C.E., but our only surviving record of his views is contained in Plato’s Cleitophon and Book One of The Republic. He
is depicted as brash and aggressive, with views on the nature of justice that
will be examined in section 3a.
3. Major Themes of Sophistic Thought
The distinction between physis (nature) and nomos
(custom, law, convention) was a central theme in Greek thought in the second half of
the fifth century B.C.E. and is especially important for understanding the work
of the sophists. Before turning to sophistic considerations of these concepts
and the distinction between them, it is worth sketching the meaning of the
Greek terms.
Aristotle defines physis as ‘the substance of things which have in
themselves as such a source of movement’ (Metaphysics, 1015a13-15). The
term physis is closely connected with the
Greek verb to grow (phuō) and the dynamic
aspect of physis reflects the view that the
nature of things is found in their origins and internal principles of change.
Some of the Ionian thinkers now referred to as presocratics,
including Thales and Heraclitus, used the term physis
for reality as a whole, or at least its underlying material constituents,
referring to the investigation of nature in this context as historia
(inquiry) rather than philosophy.
The term nomos
refers to a wide range of normative concepts extending from customs and
conventions to positive law. It would be misleading to regard the term as
referring only to arbitrary human conventions, as Heraclitus’ appeal to the
distinction between human nomoi and the one
divine nomos (DK 22B2 and 114) makes clear.
Nonetheless, increased travel, as exemplified by the histories of Herodotus,
led to a greater understanding of the wide array of customs, conventions and
laws among communities in the ancient world. This recognition sets up the
possibility of a dichotomy between what is unchanging and according to nature
and what is merely a product of arbitrary human convention.
The dichotomy between physis and nomos
seems to have been something of a commonplace of sophistic thought and was
appealed to by Protagoras and Hippias among others. Perhaps the most
instructive sophistic account of the distinction, however, is found in
Antiphon’s fragment On Truth.
Antiphon applies the
distinction to notions of justice and injustice, arguing that the majority of
things which are considered just according to nomos
are in direct conflict with nature and hence not truly or naturally just (DK 87
A44). The basic thrust of Antiphon’s argument is that laws and conventions are
designed as a constraint upon our natural pursuit of pleasure. In a passage
suggestive of the discussion on justice early in Plato’s Republic,
Antiphon also asserts that one should employ justice to one’s advantage by
regarding the laws as important when witnesses are present, but disregarding
them when one can get away with it. Although these arguments may be construed
as part of an antilogical exercise on nature and
convention rather than prescriptions for a life of prudent immorality, they are
consistent with views on the relation between human nature and justice
suggested by Plato’s depiction of Callicles and Thrasymachus in the Gorgias and Republic
respectively.
Callicles, a young Athenian aristocrat who may be a real
historical figure or a creation of Plato’s imagination, was not a sophist;
indeed he expresses disdain for them (Gorgias, 520a). His account of the
relation between physis and nomos nonetheless owes a debt to sophistic
thought. According to Callicles, Socrates’ arguments
in favour of the claim that it is better to suffer
injustice than to commit injustice trade on a deliberate ambiguity in the term
justice. Callicles argues that conventional justice
is a kind of slave morality imposed by the many to constrain the desires of the
superior few. What is just according to nature, by contrast, is seen by
observing animals in nature and relations between political communities where
it can be seen that the strong prevail over the weak. Callicles
himself takes this argument in the direction of a vulgar sensual hedonism
motivated by the desire to have more than others (pleonexia),
but sensual hedonism as such does not seem to be a necessary consequence of his
account of natural justice.
Although the sophist Thrasymachus does not employ the physis/nomos distinction in Book One of the Republic,
his account of justice (338d-354c) belongs within a similar conceptual
framework. Like Callicles, Thrasymachus
accuses Socrates of deliberate deception in his arguments, particularly in the
claim the art of justice consists in a ruler looking after their subjects.
According to Thrasymachus, we do better to think of
the ruler/ruled relation in terms of a shepherd looking after his flock with a
view to its eventual demise. Justice in conventional terms is simply a naive
concern for the advantage of another. From another more natural perspective,
justice is the rule of the stronger, insofar as rulers establish laws which
persuade the multitude that it is just for them to obey what is to the
advantage of the ruling few
An alternative, and more
edifying, account of the relation between physis
and nomos is found in Protagoras’ great speech
(Protagoras, 320c-328d). According to Protagoras’ myth, man was
originally set forth by the gods into a violent state of nature reminiscent of
that later described by Hobbes. Our condition improved when Zeus bestowed us
with shame and justice; these enabled us to develop the skill of politics and
hence civilized communal relations and virtue. Apart from supporting his
argument that aretē can be taught, this
account suggests a defence of nomos
on the grounds that nature by itself is insufficient for the flourishing of man
considered as a political animal.
The primary source on
sophistic relativism about
knowledge and/or truth is Protagoras’ famous ‘man is the measure’ statement.
Interpretation of Protagoras’ thesis has always been a matter of controversy.
Caution is needed in particular against the temptation to read modern
epistemological concerns into Protagoras’ account and sophistic teaching on the
relativity of truth more generally.
Protagoras measure thesis is
as follows:
A human being is the measure
of all things, of those things that are, that they are, and of those things
that are not, that they are not (DK, 80B1).
There is near scholarly
consensus that Protagoras is referring here to each human being as the measure
of what is rather than ‘humankind’ as such, although the Greek term for ‘human’
–hōanthrōpos– certainly does not
rule out the second interpretation. Plato’s Theaetetus
(152a), however, suggests the first reading and I will assume its
correctness here. On this reading we can regard Protagoras as asserting that if
the wind, for example, feels (or seems) cold to me and feels (or seems) warm to
you, then the wind is cold for me and is warm for you.
Another interpretative issue
concerns whether we should construe Protagoras’ statement as primarily
ontological or epistemological in intent. Scholarship by Kahn, Owen and Kerferd among others suggests that, while the Greeks lacked
a clear distinction between existential and predicative uses of ‘to be’, they
tended to treat existential uses as short for predicative uses.
Having sketched some of the
interpretative difficulties surrounding Protagoras’ statement, we are still
left with at least three possible readings (Kerferd,
1981a, 86). Protagoras could be asserting that (i) there is no mind-independent
wind at all, but merely private subjective winds (ii) there is a wind that
exists independently of my perception of it, but it is in itself neither cold
nor warm as these qualities are private (iii) there is a wind that exists
independently of my perception of it and this is both cold and warm insofar as
two qualities can inhere in the same mind-independent ‘entity’.
All three interpretations
are live options, with (i) perhaps the least plausible. Whatever the exact
import of Protagoras’ relativism, however, the following passage from the Theaetetus suggests that it was also extended to the
political and ethical realm:
Whatever in any particular
city is considered just and admirable is just and
admirable in that city, for so long as the convention remains in place (167c).
One difficulty this passage
raises is that while Protagoras asserted that all beliefs are equally true, he
also maintained that some are superior to others because they are more
subjectively fulfilling for those who hold them. Protagoras thus seems to want
it both ways, insofar as he removes an objective criterion of truth while also
asserting that some subjective states are better than others. His appeal to
better and worse beliefs could, however, be taken to refer to the
persuasiveness and pleasure induced by certain beliefs and speeches rather than
their objective truth.
The other major source for
sophistic relativism is the Dissoi Logoi, an undated and anonymous example of Protagorean antilogic. In the Dissoi Logoi we
find competing arguments on five theses, including whether the good and the bad
are the same or different, and a series of examples of
the relativity of different cultural practices and laws. Overall the Dissoi Logoi can be
taken to uphold not only the relativity of truth but also what Barney (2006,
89) has called the variability thesis: whatever is good in some qualified way
is also bad in another respect and the same is the case for a wide range of
contrary predicates.
Understandably given their
educational program, the sophists placed great emphasis upon the power of
speech (logos). Logos is a notoriously difficult term to
translate and can refer to thought and that about which we speak and think as
well as rational speech or language. The sophists were interested in particular
with the role of human discourse in the shaping of reality. Rhetoric was the centrepiece of the curriculum, but literary interpretation
of the work of poets was also a staple of sophistic education. Some
philosophical implications of the sophistic concern with speech are considered
in section 4, but in the current section it is instructive to concentrate on
Gorgias’ account of the power of rhetorical logos.
The extant fragments
attributed to the historical Gorgias indicate not only scepticism
towards essential being and our epistemic access to this putative realm, but an
assertion of the omnipotence of persuasive logos to make the natural and
practical world conform to human desires. Reporting upon Gorgias’ speech About
the Nonexistent or on Nature, Sextus says that
the rhetorician, while adopting a different approach from that of Protagoras,
also eliminated the criterion (DK, 82B3). The elimination of the criterion
refers to the rejection of a standard that would enable us to distinguish
clearly between knowledge and opinion about being and nature. Whereas
Protagoras asserted that man is the measure of all things, Gorgias concentrated
upon the status of truth about being and nature as a discursive construction.
About the Nonexistent or
on Nature transgresses the injunction
of Parmenides that one cannot say of what is that it is not. Employing a series
of conditional arguments in the manner of Zeno, Gorgias asserts that nothing
exists, that if it did exist it could not be apprehended, and if it was
apprehended it could not be articulated in logos. The elaborate parody
displays the paradoxical character of attempts to disclose the true nature of
beings through logos:
For that by which we reveal
is logos, but logos is not substances and existing things.
Therefore we do not reveal existing things to our comrades, but logos,
which is something other than substances (DK, 82B3)
Even if knowledge of beings
was possible, its transmission in logos would always be distorted by the
rift between substances and our apprehension and communication of them. Gorgias
also suggests, even more provocatively, that insofar as speech is the medium by
which humans articulate their experience of the world, logos is not
evocative of the external, but rather the external is what reveals logos.
An understanding of logos about nature as constitutive rather than
descriptive here supports the assertion of the omnipotence of rhetorical
expertise. Gorgias’ account suggests there is no knowledge of nature sub
specie aeternitatis and our grasp of reality is
always mediated by discursive interpretations, which, in turn, implies that
truth cannot be separated from human interests and power claims.
In the Encomium to Helen Gorgias
refers to logos as a powerful master (DK, 82B11). If humans had
knowledge of the past, present or future they would not be compelled to adopt
unpredictable opinion as their counsellor. The
endless contention of astronomers, politicians and philosophers is taken to
demonstrate that no logos is definitive. Human
ignorance about non-existent truth can thus be exploited by rhetorical
persuasion insofar as humans desire the illusion of certainty imparted by the
spoken word:
The effect of logos
upon the condition of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the
nature of bodies. For just as different drugs dispel different secretions from
the body, and some bring an end to disease and others to life, so also in the
case of logoi, some distress, others delight,
some cause fear, others make hearers bold, and some drug and bewitch the soul
with a kind of evil persuasion (DK, 82B11).
All who have persuaded
people, Gorgias says, do so by moulding a false logos. While other forms of power require
force, logos makes all its willing slave.
This account of the relation
between persuasive speech, knowledge, opinion and reality is broadly consistent
with Plato’s depiction of the rhetorician in the Gorgias. Both
Protagoras’ relativism and Gorgias’ account of the omnipotence of logos
are suggestive of what we moderns might call a deflationary epistemic
anti-realism.
5. References and Further Reading
Translations are from the
Cooper collected works edition of Plato and the Sprague edition of the sophists
unless otherwise indicated. The reference list below is restricted to a few
basic sources; readers interested to learn more about the sophists are advised
to consult the excellent overviews by Barney (2006) and Kerferd
(1981a) for a more comprehensive list of secondary literature.
Author
Information
George Duke
Email: george.duke@deakin.edu.au
Deakin University
Australia
Last updated: March 24, 2012
| Originally published: March 24, 2012
Categories: Ancient Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/sophists/